Bound by Fear: As the World Churns
by Kamimaia
Summary: Ladies and gentlemen, Read this. Then leave a review. It makes Douglas happy.
1. We Few, In the Wake of Hell: Leon

R&R, ladies and gentlemen! Suspend your disbelief and grant me this boon, to look upon one hellishly delightful horror crossover! Note: In games with alternate endings, specific endings have been chosen, I write VERY much freeform… and DON'T give me gripe about timelines. Flames light my furnace, thank you. ALL reviews are responded to.

First chappie's short. Will get longer. Probably.

Without further ado...

**Bound by Fear: As the World Churns**

We few, in the wake of hell

Leon Kennedy

---

As he spat the gum out into his _personal_ wastebasket, Mr. Kennedy slammed down the phone. He'd been on the accursed thing for almost an hour, his elbow sore from the angle. To hell with all of them.

Allow a picture to be painted... This picture, a table. Around it sit a few people, seeming haphazard in choice. The room itself is drab and without decor, the table oak though old. Brown... lots of brown. Little does color infiltrate when it is not worn, as this is not a living space. This was fine for Leon Scott Kennedy. What little time they sought to focus upon trivialities, the more the task at hand was emphasized. As Leon's duckegg-blue eyes swept faces from under his sandy wood hair, the man couldn't keep disappointment from his tone. Not that he'd expected to have better news.

"No funding. They would rather choose to ignore the 'problem' rather than let it show up on taxpayers' money. If it did, the populace would apparently panic."

"Let'm panic. If'n everybody jus' sat still and did nuthin', it'd make it one helluva lot easier for the zombies an' monsters an' whoever knows what else to do what they came 'ere to."

"I said the same thing. Apparently, undead aren't enough to get the world up in arms."

The one who'd responded was none other than the detective... called himself Douglas. Cartland was his last name... or so Leon thought. The man was old... but wasn't weak. If anything, Douglas was _almost_ stronger than Leon. It was almost as if, instead of becoming weaker with age, Doug had solidified into some wrinkly, scruff-chinned knuckle in a trenchcoat. The man would have been dismissed almost as a mad hobo to Kennedy, if it weren't for the fact someone else had experienced that strange, twisted nightmare of a story that Douglas had related with such severity. Cheryl Mason.

The dyejob teen wasn't much talk in either of the meetings here they'd had, mostly hung around Douglas as the adults talked... and occasionally made snide remarks. The girl in T-shirt and tight jeans was sane, though, which gave Cartland a bit more leeway. ...At least, until you asked her about her father. Leon had only made that mistake once... But then again, nearly everyone here had lost a loved one or two. Perhaps Leon was lucky. Out of everyone, only he hadn't lost anyone... At least, not like that, perhaps.

"Maybe good... without funding. No... no people."

"Ha, yeah. You wish... like it or not, there's _always _someone in the way."

"I... sorry."

Timid Mio Amakura and loud Kaylie Winters. The first was found deep in the woods, clutching a camera... the second was someone who'd chosen to fight this sort of thing for real. For life. Kaylie belonged... She was almost born to do this, while the Japanese girl spooked easily from people moving too quickly.

Kaylie had taken it upon herself to find people she termed 'hunters'... frankly, Leon was glad of her enthusiasm, despite her know-it-all attitude. Apparently, the word meant anyone who'd experienced the deeper evils, and recognized them for unnatural. That would mean he, too, was perhaps a Hunter... though whether Umbrella's T-virus qualified as what she quite probably meant was unknown to him… or Las Plagas, for that matter. There was no denying he'd seen the deeper evils, however... No, not in the least.

As for Mio... The girl only spoke broken, warped sections of English sentences. Hopefully, with time, she'd get better with communicating, but for now she knew they were here to ...well, save the world, or so Leon hoped. Really, he didn't know much about the little oriental chick... all they had gotten out of her was 'Camera see the spirit take Mayu', mixed in with either -san or -sama and a few other Japanese words. Regardless, a lot of her language was often misinterpreted... and her normal reaction was to apologize, then be quiet for hours on end.

"It's Ok, Mio, take your time. What's going on, Leon?"

Oh, he'd almost forgotten... Sunderland. James was, out of all of them, perhaps the most sympathetic... the most straightforward, the least ... well, angst-ridden. It was almost as if he'd come to peace with something he'd rather not talk about, but was at peace nonetheless. Sympathetic, _brave_, most certainly... a little protective of the women present. Women... that term had to be used loosely, Leon couldn't help but think as Cheryl opened her mouth.

"What's going on is that we're boned, Mr. Sunderland. We can't get government funding, the world is being... infiltrated... or something like that by things like ghosts, demons, zombies, monsters, monsters, _monsters, _cults, and some things we probably don't even have names for. The human race is at an end, and we're probably the ones that did it."

Another succinct observation from the chair of cynicism and teenage hormone that is Cheryl... Leon had grown to expect it. Really, it brought things down to level sometimes... other times, it only irritated.

"The human race isn't at an end, Cheryl. These are not insurmountable odds we're facing, all that any of us have seen are small, townORcity-wide infestations that are compact, efficient, and have individual purpose. The T-virus was Umbrella, We know that. The Las Plagas... I'm still not entirely certain about. Some sort of alien, maybe, although they had a will all their own... kidnapping Ashley, for one. Regardless of that, those two were conscious decisions made by human beings... but ghosts? zombies? What about the fact we have _three _people here who all experienced 'something strange' in someplace called Silent Hill, two of whom also saw the same in a few outlying areas. Oh, and something about a Lost Village, that seemed to be housing all the ghosts. Did I miss something? What we could have is puzzle pieces, rather than an armada."

Kaylie grinned.

"Totally, puzzle pieces with the zombies... how'd that one bone song go?"

"That's not the point. My point is, the world is, yes, being invaded... but we can use their plans as ways to force them out, rather than box us in."

Kennedy sighed, pulling a gloved hand through brown hair. Was he the only one that saw the possibility?

"Ways 'er not, w' still don't have government funds. What're w' supposed to do without it?"

"…Hip bone's connected to the…"

"We'll figure something out. Right now, we need information. We're all going back."

"Going back where, chief?"

As Kaylie interrupted her muffled singing to ask the question, Leon groaned inside. The answer he was going to give them, not a soul would suffer without sound. No, he would be surprised if Mio didn't run, if Heather and Kaylie didn't go into fits of panic, if James and Douglas wouldn't refuse...

"To the Lost Village... and to Silent Hill."


	2. Are you all still following me?: Douglas

No reviews yet. I remind you all that I respond to each and every word you have to say!

Well, I guess that's it. Chapter two...

---

Bound by Fear: As the World Churns

Are you all still following me?

Douglas Cartland

---

Finally, I could say I'd stopped chain-smoking. Heather- er. I mean, Cheryl'd said it already made my voice sound like Oscar the grouch, or something, and didn't need to get any worse. I listened to her... didn't know why. As my mud-stained boot crushed life from the burning tobacco (And Go- nobody knew what else), I couldn't help but realize just how wet it was.

It was a few hours after the meeting, and was really pouring down at two AM. I tended to be a bit more of a night owl these days, as I really didn't cut it in the daylight... big men in brown trench coats have a tendency to draw unwanted attention when they walk into the middle of a lunchtime rush and ask for a fistful of burger. I don't like burgers anyway.

I lit another cigarette, shielding the flame from rain before drawing it under the brim of Hea-dammit, Cheryl's baseball cap. She made me wear it... Kid was constantly looking out for me, despite the fact I was probably a goner in ten years anyway. It was pink. Another thing I only half-gave a damn about. The gesture was appreciated.

Time was probably about two-thirty, two-forty five before I opened the door to the apartment building and trudged up the stairs, dripping wet.

_We were going back._

I stopped, hand on the collar of my trench as it lingered inches over the coat hanger. The hat I'd tossed on the couch; I'd get it in the morning. I couldn't believe it, what Kennedy'd said. We were all going back, without tanks, without nukes, without even bulletproof vests. So why did it hit now, just as bed was suspiciously close? We'd all sat silently as he spoke those evil words, then nodded as if it were no big thing... left the meeting without complaint hours later.

_He was right._

And there it was. Truth, the kind that only came at eleven PM after your ninth pot of coffee and second shot of vodka for lack of anything better to do than play hokey-pokey with your liver. Kennedy was right, and the only way we could stop this was to learn about it first. But still, why send the old detective and the young teen to Silent Hill _again_ with the guy who saved the president's fucking daughter? Why not send the third guy who'd been there, whoever he was? James, right? The guy in the green coat and jeans.

_He doesn't trust me._

That much was likely, too. I'm not a trusting guy... and as a result, people have a tendancy to not trust me back. Wasn't much I could do about that, though sometimes it had its side effects. I couldn't afford to trust anyone, not anymore... Except Cheryl. Claudia had used me... and Cheryl's the only one who was ever straight with me, all through that. Vincent, that asshole. I can't forget Vincent and his scheming ass.

_Go to bed._

I'd sort it all out in the morning. I was up on caffeine and alcohol (not much. Girl'd hid most of my stuff. Or thrown it out. Either way...), and raving circles in my own head. I could already hear her sleeping... Yeah. Snooze away, girlie. Its you an' me against the world anymore, and I don't think the next few weeks are gonna make it easy on us.

Ended up hitting the sack like a side of prime beef cut from the meat rack. Kind of. I'm not entirely sure how they do it in the slaughterhouses, but if they ever hit sacks with sides of prime beef it'd be kind of like that. One thing I could say for certain was that no matter just how much bean I'd had, these old bones could fall asleep without issue. Sometimes. It was when the fog rolled in through the streets, and the streets were empty that... well, suffice to say on any other day certain parts of my life seemed little more than a dream. Regardless, as hard as my pillow was, Mr. Sandman eventually got off his lazy ass.

---

The taxi was quiet. The driver wasn't particularly conversational, and Cheryl wasn't much for starting talks unless she could think of something interesting to say. It was moving fast... not a bad thing, since I think we were a little late. I didn't recognize the route, though. Not that I would have normally, since we were supposed to be going someplace new. For reasons I didn't quite understand at the time, I actually asked the driver where we were going.

"To hell. We're going to hell."

"Whut?"

"Repent, and you'll be saved. You will have a place within paradise."

It wasn't the kind of accent I'd expect from your basic Spanish-primary taxi driver. Almost perfect English... The guy had a silver cross hanging from his rear-view. How did I miss that? Normally that's the first kind of thing I notice.

"Come again? I mean' location relative."

"You told me yourself, Mr. Cartland."

And I swore I hadn't told the guy my name. I would have asked the obvious, if we hadn't then parked. I couldn't exactly force the question out through my lips, in lieu of simply finding someplace else to be. Forget this. It isn't worth your time, even if the words sounded too familiar.

I popped the door without paying the guy, and he didn't protest. I think he knew he'd just blown a job. As I went around to the other side of the car to either wake Cheryl up or snap her out of whatever coma kept her from opening the door, the dull thunk of a car compartment seemed to jerk my attention... why did the guy pop the trunk? Almost perfectly in sync with my motion, no less. Looking through the back window of the car into the front seat, it was hard to see... but he wasn't looking back at me. Dubiously, I lifted the lid up.

A baby... a baby, wrapped in a dull black blanket... No, this was too much. _What in the hell was the guy doing with a baby in the trunk? _This wasn't right! I reached in, pulling the silent Caucasian child from the compartment with sudden haste, as if to jerk it away from the driver himself... then rounded the rest of the car, to wake Cheryl u-

_She wasn't there._

The door was open, the seat empty.

"Heather!"

_Che__**ryl**_

_A__**le**__ssa!_

_Lo__**ok **__w__**ha**__t __**you've d**__one __**n**__ow!_

_W__**i**__tch__**! W**__itc__**h**_

_Sh__**e'**__s d__**ea**__d! __**You**__ kil__**led **__h__**er**__**I know**__ you __**did**__! Witch!_

There she was. She'd stopped at the side of the bridge, and was looking out over the water. This wasn't our destination, was it? Where was Kennedy? Where was the guy in blue jeans and where was Vincent?

Vincent?

"Heather, we gotta go. There ain't nuthin' here fer us, an' I found-"

"Me."

"-In the trunk."

"I am in your arms."

I couldn't talk for a moment... the quiet child in my arms had started to whimper, as if on the verge of tears, and Cheryl'd thrown me through a loop. How could I be holding her, when she was right there?

"What are you _talking _about?"

"I am in your arms. You are holding me. I am here. You can see me."

She turned, and the deadpan sun glinted off that blonde dyed hair for all of a second. Her face was lowered, staring at her shoes...

"I weep, and the world cries with me."

"Heather, snap out of it..."

"I chuckle, and the world laughs."

Silence from me. I found my eyes drawn to the horizon, as fog loomed upon the horizon and the sound of sirens in the distance wound up the octaves.

"I scream, and the world wails in unison."

"Wh-"

"I'm burning, daddy... and so does the world burn!"

And the she burst into flames... dumbfounded, what could I do but watch as the flames scorched her skin? I couldn't move, think, act... only watch as the blanketed being in my arms smoldered into an open hearth...

---

...And almost fell off the bed, cold sweat cooling the air on my face as I reflexively tried to untangle myself from the sheets. A nightmare. A fucking nightmare, at four in the fucking morning. Fuck. And I wasn't normally one even for thinking curses. As my alarm clock's red digits shone its 4:12 check, I knew returning to sleep wouldn't be an option. Two hours and a pot of coffee would have to be enough. I could sleep on the plane... or the boat, or the train, or whatever was in store for us. It wouldn't be the first time I said to hell with sleep.


End file.
